This thread is to keep all the details about the 2+2 Chess Championship Cycles in one place. Format discussions, qualifiers, schedules, questions and answers, can all go here.

2010
This cycle is complete. Our 2010 2+2 Chess champion is Nezh. Congratulations!

2011
Here is the timeline of events that fall within currently active the 2011 cycle (all dates are subject to change):

Finished - 2+2 Open IV
Finished - 2+2 Open V
Finished - 2+2 Open VI
Finished - 2+2 Open VII
Finished - Candidates Tournament
In negotiation stage - Championship Match

Participants:
The Championship Match will be between the defending 2010 2+2 Champion, Nezh, and smilingbill, the winner of this year's Candidates Tournament.


2012
Here is the timeline of events that fall within currently active the 2012 cycle (all dates are subject to change):

Beginning November 15th, 2011: 2012 2+2 Correspondence Championship on Chess.com

I've set up a correspondence tourney on Chess.com. It is invitational only, but any player with at least one post in this forum can receive an invite, they only have to ask. More details can be found in the dedicated thread that I haven't yet created The winner of the tourney will earn an automatic berth in the 2012 Candidates Tournament (which will determine a challenger for the winner of Nezh and smilingbill's upcoming match, stay tuned for more details on that as well!)

Updated the schedule

BBJ you are awesome, period.

The secret to winning at chess...is to recognize that victory is assured.

Also...how wars are won.

Awesome indeed.

Count me in for the next round of events.

bump

BobJoeJim, could you count me in for the next cycle? Also, would you mind sending me an invite to the 2+2 group on chess.com? I have the same username as on here.

Yeah, I can't avoid this one. Put me in the chess.com one when it comes up at KyleMayhugh on chess.com. Thanks!

I only play this type of chess on gameknot right now. But for this, I would switch temporarily. Just a few questions first -- is chess.com free? Do I need to play a certain number of games first before I can be invited to this tournament?

Posting to preserve the possibility of future entry. I sort of wish I hadn't seen this, as although this is incredible, I should probably avoid entering a correspondence chess tournament. Probably will depend on the number of simultaneous games and time control...and the questions ganstaman asked.

Chess.com is free (there are paid accounts that have extra features, but you don't need to have one to play in this tournament). There are no restrictions on joining the tourney other than having a chess.com account and being invited.

Time controls will probably be the default 3 days/move, unless people really want something else. Number of simultaneous games is completely up in the air (current settings would result in 8, but that could easily go up or down).

Also, one more spoiler for the 2012 Cycle, I plan to have at least one of the automatic qualifying spots go to the winner of a bullet tourney. Plus of course there will still be at least a couple of our more traditional blitz tournaments that we've been doing for a while. I like the idea of letting in one correspondence winner and one bullet winner, though, to potentially widen the skill set of the Candidates pool

is it correct that the cycle will produce a challenger for the loser of the smilingbill/nezh match? That would mean seeding the loser of that match into the final of the next candidates', which seems unnecessary to me.

No it is of course not correct. Thanks for catching that. Obviously, the 2012 Candidates Cycle will determine a challenger who will play against the winner of the upcoming match (aka the 2011 Champion). I am going to seed the loser of the championship into the next candidates tourney, but only on equal footing with every other candidate, not with a free pass to the final round.

Would 3/days a game end in time?

I am nervous about that. On the other hand, I think that's about the fastest that's reasonable to ask, and still call it correspondence. I did make it "no vacation", so that one premium member taking a month off won't hold up the entire tourney for a month. Still, it may not finish in time. Worst case scenario, the winner of this tourney gets a free entry into the 2013 Candidate's Tourney instead (a provision that WILL be included in the official rules, once I get around to writing them up and starting a new thread for the Correspondence Tourney and all that jazz).

I say we make it without opening books and moving pieces around so we can play more games at a time.

I'm not sure how disallowing opening books or analysis boards would allow for more simultaneous games? Those seem like unrelated factors to me...

The number of simultaneous games that I ultimately settle on will be based on the time controls, and the total number of participants. I will aim to set it up with as few simultaneous games as possible, so as to still have hope that the tourney will finish in time.

you can move faster ldo. The other option is not using the chess.com tourney mode and just do a giant round robin but that would be too awesome.

The chess.com tourney mode could be turned into a giant round robin pretty easily, if I just set the group size to equal the number of players, and set it to have only one person advance

3 days per move is fast, but not absurdly so -- it also depends a lot on the number of simultaneous games as BobJoeJim points out. (For example, in my current Malkovich game, it's been around 105 days and 35 moves per side, so on average, we're collectively moving just about every 1.5 days -- that said, longer and more complicated games will make it harder to stay under that limit.)

I'm not sure what the impact will be on having opening books allowed, but my guess would have to be that this will let people move faster in the opening phase and so "bank more time" for later in the game.